"Tell them … tell the team to bear down"

Cats go for the trifecta against UCLA

RELATED LINKS:

• Anthony Gimino comments on the results of a Pac-10 writer’s survey
• Although UCLA lost three straight to end the year, the Bruins are very optimistic
• Pac-10 Tournament Central offered by the conference’s official site

Analysis by Javier Morales

Where: Staples Center, Los Angeles (19,282)

When: 1:10 p.m. (Tucson time)

Who’ll be there: Fox Sports Network will televise nationally with Barry Tompkins and former UCLA player Don MacLean calling the action. You can also listen to Brian Jeffries and Matt Muehlebach live on the radio on the IMG College/Wildcat Radio Network.

Pregame and Postgame Shows: John Schuster, Brad Allis and Rob Lantz break down the game and answer your calls at the KCUB 1290-AM feed.

Injuries/Personnel developments: UA freshman forward Kevin Parrom will play but in a limited role because of a stress fracture in his foot. UCLA freshman center Reeves Nelson is expected to play with goggles, protecting the detached retina he suffered last month.

Bet you didn’t know …: UCLA keeps tabs of slam dunks and Nelson leads the team with 23, followed by Tyler Honeycutt’s 15. The Bruins have 66 dunks compared to 54 by their opponents.

They said it: “We’re back to 0-0, like everyone else. It doesn’t matter what you’re preseason ranking was. It doesn’t matter if you were the conference champion. It’s a new season.” — UCLA guard Malcolm Lee

Matchups

BACKCOURT

If Kyle Fogg scores more than 20 points it means Arizona advances to the next round because the Bruins’ defense did not step up to the challenge. How many times do you think Fogg’s name was mentioned at UCLA’s practices this week? Fogg cracked the 50-point scoring mark in the two regular season games, the 10th time that has happened since Lute Olson started coaching the Cats in 1983-84. It will be interesting to note how Nic Wise performs on a bit of a national stage with more scouts than usual observing. Lee and All-Pac-10 selection Michael Roll form a credible backcourt. According to the UA’s game notes, Brendon Lavender will start in place of Jamelle Horne giving the UA more of a three-guard lineup, which is basically what UCLA has with Lee, Roll and Nikola Dragovic. Dragovic has the height of a forward (6-9) but he plays like a shooting guard. Advantage: Who wants it more as seniors: Roll or Wise? I’ll call this even, despite Fogg’s dominance of the Bruins this season. He can’t drop another 20-plus on the Bruins, can he?

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UA sophomore has his place among UA elite

RELATED LINKS:

• Arizona freshman forward Kevin Parrom, who has missed the past four games because of a foot injury, likely will be in uniform when the Wildcats play UCLA on Thursday in the opening game of the Pac-10 tournament. Read more from Anthony Gimino at TucsonCitizen.com.
• UCLA center Reeves Nelson, out the last couple of weeks because of an eye injury, will return to the Bruins’ lineup against Arizona. That will test the UA frontline because Nelson is active around the glass and wing player Tyler Honeycutt loosens things up with his inside-outside capability.

By Javier Morales

The list reads like a Who’s Who of top Wildcat scorers in the Lute Olson years:

Salim Stoudamire

Gilbert Arenas

Michael Dickerson

Chris Mills

Brian Williams

Sean Elliott

They have all donned NBA uniforms. They were each selected All-Americans. They combine for 10 selections to the All-Pac-10 team, each making it at least once.

They comprise an elite club since Olson became Arizona’s coach in 1983-84.

How in the world is UA sophomore Kyle Fogg part of this elite club? Find out at TucsonCitizen.com.

Steve Rivera of TucsonCitizen.com reports that Fogg earned the Golden “A” Award for the best GPA on this year’s team, announced at the annual awards banquet at Westin La Paloma tonight.

Here is an offering of our Litany O’ Links:

Remember the debate last summer about whether Arizona would benefit from a one-and-done player like Lance Stephenson? Well, he announced he is returning for his sophomore year at Cincinnati.

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Interesting to note: Stephenson and South Florida’s Jarrid Famous are projected to join Arizona in the NIT, according to the Bracket Project. Stephenson was rumored to be recruited by Arizona last summer while Famous spurned the Cats for South Florida the same night he returned to his New York home from a recruiting trip to Tucson.

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Final add Stephenson: He’s expected to be named the Big East’s Rookie of the Year today

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It was peculiar that P.J. Carlesimo announced a Pac-10 game for Fox Sports last week when USC played at ASU. Perhaps he was scouting a couple of his opponents next year when he is the head coach at Oregon?

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Richard Obert of the Arizona Republic breaks down the Fab Four high school recruits in Arizona this year, including UA-bound Phoenix North shooting guard Daniel Bejarano, who has this characteristic according to Obert: “Tell him he’s not good enough, and he’ll figure ways to prove you wrong.”

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UA’s other Class of 2010 recruit, guard Jordin Mayes of Los Angeles Westchester helped his team to the City Section Division I boys’ basketball championship Saturday at the Galen Center in Los Angeles

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The end was inevitable for former UA assistant coach Phil Johnson as part of Kevin O’Neill‘s staff at USC because O’Neill wants his own coaches on his staff. O’Neill has reportedly let go of Johnson and Gib Arnold. Johnson was the link to some of USC’s top talent from Louisiana, such as Dwight Lewis, Marcus Simmons and Leonard Washington.

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Cats face UCLA at Staples Center at 1 p.m. Tucson time

RELATED LINKS: >>Fogg Warning: Cats vs. Bruins, Part 3 in Pac-10 Tournament (TucsonCitizen.com) >>UCLA finishes its regular season with a 56-46 loss to ASU >>Game thread of today’s UCLA-ASU game on Bruins’ site BruinsNation.com >>Reeves Nelson leery of returning to the lineup because of his retina injury (Pasadena Star News) >>The L.A. Times reports that J’mison Morgan missed the Arizona game because he missed a team meeting

PACIFIC-10 CONFERENCE GRAPHIC:

Clutch free throws help Cats beat USC

RELATED LINKS AT TUCSONCITIZEN.com:

• Javier Morales: Dissecting what Arizona’s win over USC really means

By Anthony Gimino

Kyle Fogg’s teammates wouldn’t even look at him. He was facing three free throws, down three points, with 0.2 seconds left in regulation.

In the last home of the regular season.

Against USC and former UA interim head coach Kevin O’Neill.

With a victory meaning a winning regular season and, at least, an excellent shot at the NIT if the Wildcats don’t run the table at the Pac-10 tournament.

No pressure, right?

“I was searching for help and they had their heads down,” Fogg said of his teammates.

Point guard Nic Wise, the team’s only senior, interrupted Fogg’s comments at the postgame news conference.

“We were praying for him,” Wise said.

Three free throws for the tie. Arizona coach Sean Miller, who remains one of the greatest free throw shooters in Big East history and, as legend has it, shot at least 100 free throws a day in high school for nearly three years, had some words of advice for his sophomore guard.

“I just honed in on him being a confident shooter,” Miller said.

“I tell you, that is the most pressure-packed situation you can have. When you basically have no time on the clock and you’re down two and you have to make them both … but to make three?

“I tell you, unless you have been there for that feeling, that one is the putt at The Masters from about 10 feet away. It’s not for everyone.”

Fogg said a couple of USC players tapped him as he prepared to shoot, trying to rattle him. Fogg bounced the first one off the front of the rim but it went in. The second one was a swish. So was the third one.

Read the rest of the story at TucsonCitizen.com …

Miller: Senior guard helpful in team’s “best win of the season”

RELATED TUCSONCITIZEN.COM LINKS:

• Morales: Pac-10 tournament still very much foggy going into the last game (with printable PDF bracket)
• Gimino: It’s not over until Kyle Fogg says it’s over

By Steve Rivera

Nic Wise doesn’t want to go out a loser at Arizona. It’s not what he’s about. It’s not how he was advertised when he first came in.

Former UA coach Lute Olson used always say that Wise was a winner. He knew how to win being that he was one of the winningest players – ever – in Texas high school history.

On Thursday night, real late into the night, Wise looked like he was headed to being the captain of a losing team – until Arizona pulled another Houdini-act victory against the Bruins, 78-73, in McKale Center.

Arizona coach Sean Miller called it his team’s “best win of the season.’’

“It’s very gratifying for everyone in our locker room to have the wherewithal and fight to keep playing,’’ Miller said.

Arizona was down 50-36 with just more than 12:53 left. Then something clicked. It came just two minutes after Wise’s first basket of the game. Four minutes later he hit another. And then another.

Arizona was rolling. Wise said there is no pressure on him to perform. Thursday night he just happened to do it in the second half, in the waning moments.

“I know I wanted to come out fighting in the second half and didn’t want to go out like that,’’ said Wise, who finished with 12 points all in the second half. He was 0 for 3 from the floor in the first half. “I didn’t want to let my team down. I just wanted to provide a spark in the second half.’’

READ THE REST OF RIVERA’S BLOG AT TUCSONCITIZEN.COM

Stanford’s two-headed monster will test UA defense

Landry Fields (left) and Jeremy Green combine to average a league-leading 39.3 points a game. The rest of the Cardinal is averaging 32.8 a game. By Javier Morales It will not exactly be Jimmer Fredette times two — can you imagine that nightmare? — but Stanford’s Landry Fields and Jeremy Green will present double the challenge to stop prolific scorers for Arizona’s newly stringent defense. Ever since the Pac-10 schedule started, the Wildcats have mostly made the opposition’s top scorer obsolete. Perhaps that is another knock on the conference, but it also shows how the Wildcats’ defense has improved. Consider: In non-conference games, the opposing leading scorers had career-type games against the Wildcats, including BYU’s Fredette (49 points), Wisconsin’s Trevon Hughes (24), Colorado’s Corey Higgins (28), UNLV’s Tre’Von Willis (25), Louisiana Tech’s Kyle Gibson (25) and Lipscomb’s Adnan Hodzic (34). In Pac-10 games, the opposing leading scorers have not fared as well against the UA, including Washington’s Quincy Pondexter, the third-leading scorer in the conference at 19.5 points a game who had only seven in Tucson.

PAC-10 STANDINGS TEAM PTS OVERALL PAC-10 RPI SOS Arizona 2 10-9 4-3 60 7 ASU 1 14-6 4-3 83 100 California 0 13-6 5-2 25 3 USC 0 12-7 4-3 63 24 Stanford 0 10-9 4-3 123 74 Wash. St. 0 14-6 4-4 96 152 Oregon St. 0 8-11 2-5 202 170 UCLA -1 9-10 4-3 134 26 Washington -1 13-7 3-5 76 57 Oregon -1 10-9 2-5 158 107 PTS: Team is awarded a point for a road victory and deducted a point for a home loss THUR., JAN. 28 (Tucson times) Stanford at Arizona, 6 p.m. Cal at ASU, 6:30 p.m. USC at Oregon St., 6:30 p.m. UCLA at Oregon, 8:30 p.m. SAT., JAN. 30 (Tucson times) Wash. St. at Washington, 1:30 p.m. Stanford at ASU, 2 p.m. USC at Oregon, 4 p.m. UCLA at Oregon St., 5:30 p.m. SUN., JAN. 31 (Tucson time) Cal at Arizona, 1:30 p.m.

Klay Thompson of Washington State also scored under his league-leading average of 22.3 points against the UA, although he had a respectable 19. Others such as ASU’s Rihards Kuksiks (15 points), Oregon’s Tajuan Porter (7), UCLA’s Malcolm Lee (15) and USC’s Dwight Lewis (14) did not have overpowering performances against the Cats.

Perhaps the lone glitch on the UA’s defensive effort in the conference was allowing Oregon State center Roeland Schaftenaar to score 22 points in a 67-64 loss at Corvallis on Jan. 14. Schaftenaar is not averaging points in double figures. Calvin Haynes, who leads the Beavers at 12.3 points a game, had only nine against the Cats.

Fields and Green combine to average 20.3 points more than last year when they averaged only 19 points combined.

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Miller responsible for Cats’ postseason aspirations

By Javier Morales

The late, great Al McGuire has one of the best quotes in relation to winning:

“Winning is overrated. The only time it is really important is in surgery and war.”

For the first time in the last 25 years, Arizona and its fans can relate.

In other words, extending “The Streak” to 26 years is not as important as first-year coach Sean Miller setting the stage for success starting in 2010-11 and beyond. The Wildcats are banking on Miller to get that feeling back in which winning and making the NCAA tournament is a way of life again.

For those of you who can’t wait, and still think Arizona is destined to extend its NCAA tournament appearance streak this season, the responsibility falls on Miller’s shoulders even more.

He will be the orchestrator trying to find the sweet music by season’s end. So far, the work of Miller and his staff has mostly been beneficial to the Cats reaching their goals. Of course, some speed bumps have kept Miller from going full speed at No. 26.

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